Learning motivation of secondary school student: Scale development and the prediction effect on learning interest

Learning motivation is one important variable that affect the students´ English learning performance. After analyzing the literature and introducing a psychometric method, one questionnaire that aims to assess the English learning motivation of junior high students was made. In this questionnaire, the English learning motivation was divided into two dimensions, including learning goal orientation and performance goal orientation; and the questionnaire demonstrated good inter consistency reliability, construct validity and equivalence validity of gender. In addition, it was found that the two dimensions of this questionnaire can predict learning interest effectively, namely the learning goal orientation predicts learning interest positively, and the performance goal orientation predicts learning interest negatively. Furthermore, the learning goal orientation can partially mediate the positive predictive effect of teachers´ expectancy on learning interest.